


empty and perfect (shattered and worthless)

by Laora



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Basically an alternate scene for W1d6, Gen, None of these kids are okay but they'll get there eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25876783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laora/pseuds/Laora
Summary: On Day Six, Neku and Shiki run into a familiar face in a shop.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 50





	empty and perfect (shattered and worthless)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this entire fic in 3 hours on a slow night shift what the fuck is my brain
> 
> I'm in the process of replaying twewy and I always have a lot of shiki feelings, so when I hit day 6 I said no. We must have More feelings. So here we are
> 
> Title is from Never Again by Breaking Benjamin
> 
> ~~do I have two overdue birthday fics to write? Absolutely not what are you talking about~~

"Hey, Eri, over here!"

It's background noise, chatter that Neku barely notices as he digs through a pile of shoeboxes at D+B, praying that they've got Stalker's size in the boots they need. But his Partner freezes up beside him, her grip on the piggy tightening until her knuckles turn white. He frowns, glancing at the timer on his palm before looking up. (They've already wasted half an hour, and sure, they do need the fusion boost these shoes offer, but a detour to 104 was _really_ not in their plans—especially with Stalker so out of sorts—)

She's standing bolt-upright from where she'd been digging through some jewelry before, and a small, terrified noise escapes the back of her throat. It's basically the only thing she's said all day, unprompted, and his frown only deepens as he follows her gaze across the aisle.

One of the girls they followed around yesterday - Nina? Mina? - is waving, a couple of shopping bags over her arm as she approaches the two of them. He blinks before looking again to Stalker, whose face has turned a pasty white. She's looking all around the store, jumpy and scared, as if begging for an exit to reveal itself.

"There you are!" the girl - Mina, he's pretty sure that's it - says with a bright smile, and reaches for a quick hug that Stalker flinches harshly at. "Hey, you all right? This guy isn't bugging you, is he?" Here, she shoots Neku a dirty look that he only blinks at, more confused by the second.

Stalker shakes her head, rubbing at her face. "Um…I'm sorry, um, Mina, I—I have to go, I can't—"

"We were gonna catch up!" Mina says, her face falling as she looks up at her. "No one's seen you in over a week, and—after what happened—"

"I'm sorry," Stalker says, her voice even more choked, and pulls her arm away from Mina's grip. "I can't—"

"Hey, Mina!"

Neku blinks several times before looking up in the direction of - of _Stalker's voice,_ approaching them from across the store. Sure enough, it's _her,_ a head taller than Mina and Neku, her hair dyed bright pink. Her clothes are different, and there's no stuffed piggy in her arms, but there's no doubt that it's her—and he feels dizzy for a moment, light-headed as he stares, and then turns to his Partner beside him. Somehow, her face has grown an even uglier shade of gray. What the _fuck—_

"Eri?" Mina's turned, too, her face twisted in confusion. "Hey, I didn't know you had a sister—"

The new girl—Eri, probably—turns toward Neku and Stalker, and her face twists in confusion. "I don't," she says slowly, staring at Stalker with a frown. "Who're you?"

Stalker shakes her head, tears falling thick down her cheeks now. Eri's frown deepens, and she looks her up and down before her gaze locks onto the piggy clutched tightly in her arms. "Where did you get that?" she asks, sharper, and takes a step forward. Stalker takes one back, bumping into the shoe display behind her. "That's—"

Stalker sobs, loud, and a couple people in the next aisle look over. "Where'd you get that cat?" Eri asks, her voice strangled and low as she reaches out for it, her hands shaking. "That's not yours! Did you _steal it from—?"_

Stalker shakes her head again, harsh, and reaches up with one hand to wipe at her eyes. She turns, suddenly, toward the door, but Eri grabs her arm before she can move more than a couple steps. "You give that cat to me," she says, and it's his Partner's voice, but Neku has never heard her that angry—even when confronting Reapers, even when obliterating Noise. "You give that back to me, and I don't beat you up for desecrating my _best friend's grave—"_

"Woah, hey," Mina says, her voice a little high as she steps forward, trying to mediate, but Eri ignores her. Stalker doesn't even acknowledge that she's there; she does her best to keep her face turned away, and keep her grip on the piggy, and keep the volume of her sobs down. None of these are really working.

"Eri, what's going on?" Mina asks, louder, and Eri glances at her.

"That's Shiki's stuffed cat," she grinds out, between her teeth, and all the blood drains from Mina's face.

"What?" she demands, and Stalker sobs again. Eri's grip on her arm is like iron, and she seems like she's gonna dissociate even more than she already has if this keeps up. Sure, this interaction is shaving away more and more of their precious time to make sure that idiot's pin takes off, and that's an issue in and of itself. But if Neku is gonna be completely honest with himself, something deep in his gut is twisting all wrong at the sight of his Partner so distressed. He has to do something.

"Hey," he says sharply, stepping forward and doing his best to get between Shiki and Eri. "I don't know who you are, but this is my friend Shiki, and that's her stuffed cat, so just leave her alone, all right? She's having a shit day, and you're not helping."

Eri stares at him, her face flushing a little more in rage. Shiki jerks, beside him, and though Neku doesn't turn, he knows she's staring, too. "That's bullshit," Eri snarls. "Whoever thought they could _dress up like me_ and carry Mr. Mew around, that's—" she sobs too, now, reaching to rub furiously at her face with her free hand. "I've never seen someone who looks less like Shiki in my _life—"_

Shiki sobs again, louder, and Neku draws himself up taller. "Leave us alone," he snaps, and grabs for Shiki's arm. "C'mon, Shiki, we're leaving."

"Like hell you are," Eri snarls, but Mina catches her arm as Neku wrenches Shiki from her grasp.

"People are staring," she says quietly, as Neku starts leading a sobbing Shiki toward the door. "Let's at least take it outside, yeah?"

_Yeah, let's,_ Neku thinks, maybe a little nasty except that anyone who makes his Partner cry like this deserves it. When he glances back, the two of them are only a couple feet behind them. _Let's see what you think of that, huh?_

(When did he start caring so much about Shiki? For that matter, when did she become _Shiki_ and not _Stalker?)_

(It doesn't matter. Right now, all that matters is getting Shiki somewhere safe where she can calm down, and maybe explain what's going on.)

They step out the automatic doors, past the Reapers' sigil, and he hears Eri swear as the two of them disappear from view. "Where'd they go?" she demands, her voice rising higher as Mina starts looking up and down the street for them.

"C'mon, let's go," Neku says to Shiki in an undertone, his grip tightening on her upper arm. "We've gotta help that idiot Mick, right? Maybe we can come back and grab the boots later."

Shiki shakes her head as she only sobs harder, staring back at Eri and Mina as the former collapses into hysterics of her own. "We've gotta go," Neku says, louder, and tugs on her arm. "C'mon—"

Shiki stares at Eri for several seconds, though, her face twisted in an expression Neku has never seen before. "She hates me," she whispers, her voice strangled, and Neku finds that he doesn't have an answer to that.

"We've gotta complete the mission," he says again, gentler, and pulls her toward the Scramble.

* * *

Three hours later, when the timer vanishes from their hands and Neku feels the tension leave his shoulders, he can only hold Shiki—awkward and unsure, but he's the only one who can—as she cries into his arms.

.

.

* * *

.

.

Eri wakes up from a terrifying nightmare she can't remember, and her first instinct is to call her best friend.

They haven't talked in _weeks_ , since she spoke without thinking—put her foot in her mouth—and Shiki ran out of her apartment in tears. She's texted but never received a response; she's even tried calling a few times, desperate enough to talk to her that it outweighs her friend's fear of phone calls.

She's never gotten a response, and Shiki never picked up the phone, and Eri's sure she's never been so lost and desolate in her life.

But she thinks, here, now, she can understand some ghost of the anxiety attacks Shiki has been dealing with for years. Her respect for her friend skyrockets further, because this is the most terrifying thing she's ever experienced. Her breathing comes in short bursts despite her best efforts, not supplying her with nearly enough oxygen; her hands are shaking badly enough that she nearly clicks the wrong contact twice before finally settling on Shiki's. (🌺✨Shiki✨🌺, her phone reads, and she thinks that if her friend forgives her then she'll need to add some hearts, too.) Her thoughts are running over each other, badly enough that she's not sure she'll be able to form a coherent sentence on the off-chance that Shiki actually picks up.

Hearing her voice will be enough. She takes a shuddering breath in, trying her best to calm her sobs, and waits on tenterhooks for the line to connect.

It dumps her into voicemail, and she listens desperately to Shiki asking her to leave a message just to hear her voice. But she ends the call before the _beep,_ only hitting _redial_ as her breathing speeds up again.

She has to pick up. _She has to._

She gets voicemail again, and a high, keening sort of sound leaves her throat as she hangs up. Maybe—damn, it's—it's almost three in the morning, and that's a good enough reason not to pick up on its own. Maybe she's pissing off her friend all over again by waking her up at all hours of the night to cry at her. Maybe this will only ruin any chance she might have of repairing their friendship—

No, Shiki isn't like that. She _knows_ Shiki isn't like that. With shaking fingers, she calls one more time, and prays that her friend will pick up.

"Eri?"

Her friend's voice is a broken whisper, but it's _Shiki,_ and Eri sobs again into the phone line before she can help herself. "Eri?" Shiki asks again, her voice a little stronger, more urgent. "Are you okay?"

"Are _you_ okay?" It's the first thing out of her mouth because it's the most important thing in the world, the only thing that matters right now. Her dreams involved a speeding car and a bloody curb and a tombstone bearing her best friend's name. They featured a doppelganger in the store, carrying Mr. Mew and talking with some boy like it was all some kind of sick joke. They featured her best friend leaving her behind without a trace, and they featured Eri being left behind to pick up the shattered pieces of what was once her life.

"I'm—I'm here," Shiki says eventually, quiet again, and Eri sobs. "Um, why are you calling me—?"

"I was so scared," Eri says earnestly, wiping at her eyes, and she can hear hesitation in Shiki's breathing. "I—I'm sorry, I had a—a nightmare, a really bad one, and you were dead and I—I didn't know what to do—"

Shiki takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Eri cuts herself off so she can have a chance to talk. "I thought—"

She hesitates, and Eri fights not to interrupt it because she doesn't want to send Shiki running away again. She's _talking to her,_ on the phone at three in the morning, which is a miracle in and of itself—"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can," Eri says instantly, immediately, and there's something off about this but she can't tell what or why, yet.

"Do you hate me?"

Eri freezes, and she doesn't respond for several seconds because she's trying to make sense of the question. When would Shiki have gotten that into her head? Why would she ever—

"Eri," Shiki says, and she realizes with a jolt that she's been quiet for far too long. "Please, if the answer is yes, I just want to know. I won't annoy you anymore. I'm strong enough now—"

"Why would I ever hate you?" Eri demands over the end of her sentence, and she hates herself for it because Shiki clams up when she's interrupted, but she needs to know where she went wrong—what could have possibly made her best friend think she wanted nothing to do with her when she couldn't survive without her, when—

"You said—" Shiki cuts herself off, breathing deeply. "The other day, when I was over at your place. You said I wasn't good enough to be a designer. I thought you were fed up—"

"Shiki," Eri sobs, clutching her phone tighter with badly shaking hands. "I've been trying to apologize for that for weeks, but you never answered when I called. I meant—I was _trying_ to say that you were meant to be a seamstress, not a designer—you're _amazing_ at what you do! I never meant—"

Shiki's sobs increase in volume just as Eri's do. "You're my best friend," Eri chokes out, because it's the most important thing in the world, the one thing she has to make sure Shiki understands before they try and fail to go back to sleep. "I don't know what I'd do without you, I _swear—"_

"You're my best friend, too," Shiki whispers, the words staticky in the way that means she's holding her phone too close to her cheek. Eri takes a deep, shuddering breath, and closes her eyes.

* * *

A couple weeks later, after those nightmares have mostly faded into her subconscious, she meets Neku Sakuraba.

He's familiar in a way she can't place. He lives across town, and he doesn't go to their school, and she's _pretty_ sure she'd remember meeting someone with that bad of fashion sense for any length of time. How on _Earth_ did he meet Shiki, let alone hit it off with her so quickly when she's so terrified of strangers?

It doesn't matter. Shiki seems comfortable in his company, and that's good enough for Eri—so she sits down at this little ramen place called Ramen Don that Sakuraba recommended, and waits for their specials to be ready as Shiki talks, and talks, and _talks,_ waving her hands animatedly, her eyes bright. Eri's only half paying attention to the words; seeing her friend so happy is enough distraction for her.

Their food arrives, and as Sakuraba lifts a hand to dig in, Eri sees a loose thread on the wrist cuff of his hoodie. She sees Shiki see it too, and smiles as she scowls, and whips out a pair of scissors to fix it. She completely disregards Sakuraba's protests, something Eri's not sure she's ever seen her do before.

He quiets down quickly, though, as if he knew going in that it was a lost cause. He slides his free hand into the front pocket of his jacket, and rolls his eyes, and blows a piece of hair out of his face that's fallen away despite _far_ too much hair gel. "It's nice to meet you," he says to Eri with a crooked sort of smile. There's something weird in his tone, like he doesn't quite believe the words he's saying. She decides not to look too far into it. Anyone Shiki trusts so wholeheartedly is automatically good in her books.

"You too," she says cheerfully, and throws Shiki a thumbs up as she tucks her sewing kit away. "So, how'd you two meet, anyway?"

They share a _look,_ something Eri can't parse before it's gone. Sakuraba shrugs a bit. "Just happened to meet her around town, y'know. She got on me about a loose button, I called Mr. Mew a piggy, and all of a sudden, we were friends."

Yeah, that sounds about right, and she feels her grin widen. "Well, so long as you've got her back, then I've got yours. I'm pretty hard to piss off, most of the time, so don't worry too much about that."

Neku snorts, and then hides it poorly; he scrubs a hand though his hair, grinning at her. "I'll make sure to stay on your good side, then."

Something about the way the fluorescent lights strike his hair remind her of a forgotten nightmare, of a monster wearing her skin and holding Shiki's creation within its claws. It reminds her of rage, and grief, and irrational hatred that lingered in the back of her throat for days afterward.

She really should clamp down on that imagination. She shakes it off quickly, and smiles broadly back at Shiki and her new friend.


End file.
